Procedia Technology 8 ( 2013 ) 9 12

2212-0173 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of The Hellenic Association for Information and Communication Technologies in Agriculture Food and Environment (HAICTA)doi: 10.1016/j.protcy.2013.11.003

ScienceDirect

6th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies in Agriculture, Food and Environment (HAICTA 2013)

e-Government Research and Services at an Era of Economic Crisis

Alexander B. Sideridisa,* aAgricultural University of Athens,75 Iera Odos str., Athens 11855,Greece

Abstract

Advanced e-Government services in modern societies cover the whole spectrum of citizen's daily activities and create the appropriate basis in public administrations for the development of knowledge based economies. Complex information systems and sophisticated networks provide the means to societies for extending the areas of application of such services beyond national borders. Apart of public administrations, federal agencies and international organizations continue to encourage national governments to further exploit Information and Communication Technologies and adopt e-government services aiming to provide the appropriate structure for the application of integrated global economy's and security's systems. E-government systems of such range, facilitating the application of integrated services need to be safe, secure and trusty to all citizens and administrations. Therefore, their development should be based on international cooperation and very advance technology. To this effect, the European Commission is internationally playing an important role since is taking very significant decisions and is initiating major projects to enhance the decisive contribution of e-government services to the global economy as a whole. Nevertheless, diverse social, economic and political systems throughout Europe make this effort of e-Government "for all" a very difficult task. Research is continuously needed since original plans quite often are modified to meet new targets. To the global economy, global security, control of international citizen movement and terrorism have been recently added making e-government systems more complex and mostly needed. 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of HAICTA.

Keywords: Economic crisis; e-government; ICT services; information society

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +30-210-529-4171; fax: +30-210-529-4199.

E-mail address: as@aua.gr

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of The Hellenic Association for Information and Communication Technologies in Agriculture Food and Environment (HAICTA)

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1. Introduction

It is well established by research, recent publications and careful observation to e-Government implementation procedures that advanced e-Government services, developed in modern societies, with complex day to day activities, is a prerequisite not only for meeting citizens needs but also in creating the background for the development of knowledge based economies [1]. For the last twenty years Governments, pressed by the European Commission (EC) and the need to participate successfully to projects aiming to elevate bureaucracy, establish transparency in public expenditure and present efficient and trusty statistical data, support research integrated programmes most of which are heavily sponsored by the EC. Today, the results of these common efforts seem to be doubtful. Specific integrated European projects [2] were well progressing few years back. Now, at least in the countries of the south Europe where -due to the economic crisis- there is a continuous need for reshaping governmental structures and services provided to citizens, there is a feeling of unreadiness to cope with strict rules and procedures directed by economic policies and imposed by directorates of the north.

Although the optimism of the nineties had lead the EC to very significant decisions for the information society and media, aiming at further enhancing the contribution of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to societies and citizens life, the economic crisis of the last five years has caused a rapid change of priorities. E-Government systems are now aiming to expose citizen's personal data, in the name of the global economy, taxation and combat avoidance of taxation. To all these reasoning, terrorism and control of citizen's movement beyond national boarders have been added. These new e-Government systems and services are aiming to support important political decisions, provide statistical evidence to public administrations in order to impose new regulations, increase the intensity of sophisticated security and awareness systems.

It is a common observation by researchers in the field of e-Government, that policies and ambitious plans of accelerating the whole process of developing integrated systems for all in the member states of the European Union (EU), need to be continuously changed. There are so diverse political, social, security and economic systems and different governmental priorities, making e-services unable to meet EC targets, in spite of the available resources both of national and community public expenditure [3]. To all this complexity, the increased pressure for deviation from the original plans should be added, due to the economic crisis in Europe, appeared during the crucial period of systems implementation. As it is obvious, a number of political priorities, research plans and numerous projects have to be modified and timetables have to be reviewed accordingly.

To the well established bureaucratic procedures of the twenty eight member States of the EU, bureaucracy imposed by the EC policies, directives and regulations have made the task of simplifying, homogenising, integrating and automating public administration procedures more difficult. An additional difficulty, in the process of homogenisation of the services offered to citizens of the EU, was due to the fact that priorities, policies and implementation procedures of the various public administrations within Europe, were completely different. Although diversity in procedures and services, among the members of the EU, is welcome as a characteristic of plurality, nevertheless in the case of designing and implementing common to all citizens of Europe e-Government services causes additional problems and difficulties in systems integration like citizens mobility, taxation, security, insurance and public health delivery. Thus, more clear EC decisions and directives, sufficiently clear purposed procedures, fixed timetables and continuous supervision towards e-Europe, is evidently needed.

2. Past, present and future e-Government initiatives

The turn to the 21st century found European countries at a large disparity with regard the contribution of Information and Communication Technologies to societies and citizens life. Although three major integrated European framework programmes had been nearly implemented, figures regarding Internet usage in Europe were still disappointing and presenting a large disparity even if among the EU member states. Digital divide was strongly hold in large population groups and inhabitants of rural and mountainous areas of Europe. Policy makers, researchers and academic institutions had been anxious and had tried to alert governments on the existing inequality among the citizens. Brussels also could not disregard at the disappointing figures presented by its services and researchers at various fora. Indeed, at the first few years of the present century, popular slogans like "an information

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society for all", "investment in people and skills", "e-Europe an Information Society for All" appeared and translated to major political decisions and new strategies [4], [5].

By the year 2010, two European initiatives had been implemented. The first e-Europe first Action Plan had been implemented by the year 2002 and had led to the second i2010 e-Government Action Plan. The i2002 plan was aiming to prepare European citizens to enjoy later coming e-government services by increasing Internet users to a competitive percentage. Both action plans did not succeed their purpose to transform Europe to an Information Society for all following a general pattern in accordance with Lisbons pursuance of "transforming the European States to a powerful union of knowledge economies". ICT innovative systems and well published e-Government services remain luxury services to a few. This situation had led to a new e-Government EC Action Plan named the Digital Agenda for Europe 2020.

The initiatives and action plans initiated by the EC and described above are constituting a series of research activities, promoting specific research areas of e-Government around Europe and activating research groups of various academic institutions. Seven up to now Framework Programmes for Research and Technology Development were announced and heavily sponsored by the EC. Research groups and public administrations all over Europe, by undertaking the corresponding projects and trying to meet specific targets put by the EC, compete with groups aiming to succeed in meeting project targets also put by the International Organisation of United Nations. Also, European Governments direct specific actions and impose to their public administrations restrictions and methodologies implying maturity in using immediate and direct e-government service applications. A few years back, such an example presented the British Government in deciding to apply the so-called Transformational Government model in all day-to-day governmental activities. As a result, British Public Administration transactions had to follow e-government strict systems (e.g. the use of e-Purchasing, e-Tender, Contract Management services for every commodity or public work assignment, Registration/Land/Revenue Services, Hospital Services, Agricultural Extension Services, Environmental Permits etc). Also, very recently, the Greek Government which -in spite of the country being to the centre and focus of the economic crisis- has required and actually demanded the compulsory use by its citizens of the e-government system of taxation.

It seems that here is no room for manoeuvres anymore, in further delaying the application of e-Government systems aiming to combat economic inadequacies, restrict public expenditure and guarantee statistical data integrity or Public Administrations' transparency. Nevertheless, enforcement of new rules and models of administration would take precaution of the protection of personal data and the overall well being of citizens. Otherwise, such initiatives become dangerous and never succeed their purpose. Also, a uniform deployment of Internet and web capabilities in enforcing e-Government systems in the whole population of a European country maybe unjustified and damaging to main purpose of these systems being devotion to citizens service.

All the above mentioned initiatives should better perform if the initial plan, at the beginning of the 21st century, had fully succeed its prerequisites. This plan was aiming to increase citizens' awareness and appreciation to the degree of influence of the Information Society to day-to-day practices (i.e. to e-government systems design and applied at a next stage), to alert societies in making full use of socioeconomic benefits and to stimulate the role of EU in the global aspect of the Information Society [4], [5], [6]. As a result, the following Framework Programmes, for research and technology development, have partly satisfy their goals. Since they were aiming to strengthen World Wide Grid technology and encouraged cooperation among researchers in the EU in developing integrated systems and e-government services to the European citizens' benefit, the challenge still remains to be taken up by the e-government research groups.

3. Conclusion

The aforementioned problems in dealing with the development of new e-Government services aiming to support citizens, private enterprises, public administrations, governmental policies and international organisations' motions for world economic stability, security and peace could not be neglected. The EC launched seven priority areas in the "Europe 2020 Strategy" one of which should be dealt with wider deployment and more effective use of digital technologies as a way of preparing EU economy of the next decade [7]. The necessary actions form the Digital Agenda for Europe aiming to lead to a Digital Single Market characterized by the connectivity of all Europeans to high speed Internet through which citizen or business or administration staff should enjoy high value e-government

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services in a Government to Citizen or Government to Business or Government to Government mode [8]. The challenge is in front of us. There is room for all our research groups, in every country of the EU. Let us join our efforts and active interest to the benefit of our citizens, our administrations, our countries and to Europe as a whole.

References

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the EU. In: Sideridis AB, Patrikakis Ch, editors. Global Security, Safety and Sustainability and e-Democracy. Berlin: ICST Springer Publications; 2011. Vol. 99, p.263-270.

[3] Wauters P. Benchmarking e-government policy within the e-Europe programme. London: Aslib Proceedings, 2006. Vol.58(5), p.389-403. [4] EUROPEAN COMMISSION. i2010-A European Information Society for growth and employment. Brussels: EC publications, 2005. [5] EUROPEAN COMMISSION. The European eGovernment Action Plan 2011-2015-Harnessing ICT to promote smart, sustainable &

innovative Government in ICT for Goverment and Public Services2010. Brussels: EC publications, 2010. [6] EUROPEAN COMMISSION. Towards interoperability for European public services. Brussels: T.C. Communication from the Commission

to the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, 2010. [7] EUROPEAN UNION. DECISION No 922/2009/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on interoperability solutions for

European public administrations (ISA). Strasbourg: Decisions adopted jointly by the European Parliament and the Council, 2009. [8] Tamara Almarabeh AA. A General Framework for E-Government: definition maturity challenges, opportunities and success. European

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